Saturday, August 6, 2011

Are You Watching "The Glee Project" Yet?

If you love Glee, but are getting sick of the increasingly out of touch story lines and unrecognizable, slow paced musical numbers, you need to check out The Glee Project.  If you love Glee, but yearn for more earth-shaking, hand-clapping group numbers and top 40 hits, then you need to check out The Glee Project. 

12 young people compete for an 8 episode guest role on Glee.  Each week they perform two songs: a "homework assignment" song sung live and a music video for which they pre-record the vocals.  The bottom three perform for Ryan Murphy, Glee writer and creator, to determine who goes home.

Below is a video from a homework assignment song performed earlier in the season.


The Glee Project is the best of Glee mixed with the best of American Idol.  I thought after a decade of singing talent shows there wouldn't be much else out there, but the kids on The Glee Project have blown my mind.  They are so unbelievably talented and lovable, it is a joy to watch.  I hooked my sister on the show, and then she hooked my mom on it. The songs are consistently up-tempo and chances are you've heard them on the radio or had them stuck in your head at one point or another.   It's tempting to see the contestants as high school cliches - the fat girl, the rocker, the gay kid, the latina bombshell, many of which already exist on the show - but instead you see them as real people and it makes you see the characters more like real people too.

I think Glee will benefit from this infusion of enthusiasm and reality that has been missing from the most recent season.  We've been reintroduced to what made Glee great to begin with: quirky, talented youth coming of age as outsiders we can relate to and root for, plus a healthy dose of arena/broadway worthy performances.

In this video, the remaining contestants are subjected to that classic Glee hazing ritual: the slushie, and perform a song from the ever-entertaining musical genre: the mash-up.  Spoiler Alert: This is a fairly recent video, so if you haven't seen the first few episodes this will reveal who has left the show so far. 


 

Catch new episodes of The Glee Project every Sunday at 9:00 on Oxygen

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